


Camping Out

by Merfilly



Category: DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 12:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5163485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver, second leash on life in hand, makes time to get away with the son of his heart and the son he never really knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camping Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BardicRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/gifts).



> BardicRaven,
> 
> I hope you do not mind that I stepped back a little in time with the canon. I wanted to grant you a story of a father and his two sons, but it was far easier to set it against the time period near Archer's Quest.

Oliver Queen looked out over the Sonoran Desert, then back at his two sons playfully doing the 'no you carry that' game. He was smiling when he looked back over the view from the site Roy had picked out for them to camp at. Normally, he knew his former sidekick and the son of his heart went further north and east in the state, staying on the reservation. For this trip, though, they had all agreed that steering clear of people they might know was a good idea. That was one reason Dinah was keeping Lian, while she did some hand to hand training with Mia.

It was a time for the three of them to get to know each other a little better.

 _"Without exotic dancers this time,"_ Roy had ribbed Connor, and Connor had turned a very odd shade of his usual darker coloration. Ollie was looking forward to getting that story out of them. Or at least he hoped he would.

"You two don't have the jeep unloaded yet?" he asked as he walked back over, his voice cheerful and amused. "How can I put the tent up if you don't have it out for me?"

Roy made a scoffing sound at that. "Ollie, if you think I am going to let you pitch the tent again, after the last time? You came back from the dead with more than one screw loose."

Connor looked over with interest. "What did he do, Roy?" He grabbed out two of the packs, leaving Roy to wrestle the third and the tent out on his own.

"It was one of those fancy models, the easy-set tents?" Roy began, taking the pack over to a convenient large rock, setting it down after doing a visual check for scorpions, spiders, and other assorted desert nuisances. "Well, he got it up and put together just fine." 

"And I forgot to stake it to the ground," Ollie owned up, shrugging and nodding all at once. 

It made Roy look over, then smile a little, because Ollie had been one who could bluster so easily, when they'd both been younger and newer to the game of capes and robbers. "Winds picked up that night, all of a sudden, and there we were, chasing our tent to get it back," he said in a soft voice. "Wasn't really that bad, and was even fun, after we got it back."

"Better than the time we lost the tent to that pack of javelina," Ollie reminded, and both men began to laugh. Roy was the first to stop, seeing Connor's patient but lost expression.

"Sorry, bro. One of the first times me and Ollie went camping without being on the rez, we ran afoul of a pack of javelina that had been stirred up by a coyote or something." Roy grinned, remembering. "They tore right through our camp, chased us both, then kept going. The tent was in shreds -- and, of course, it was the rainy season -- so of course it rained before we had cleaned up our site, and we got drenched."

"You two have shared so many adventures, both as heroes and as family," Connor said.

"Doesn't mean we're not looking forward to making new ones with you, Connor," Ollie said, meaning it so sincerely. Roy nodded. 

"It's been good, the few times we hung out and worked together, bro," Roy told him. "There's a lot of the past, but yeah, the future is what's the real thing now."

Conversation died off for a bit, as Connor had set the other two packs beside the one Roy had carried over. Roy paced off the site, Connor studying what he did, while Ollie put all the panels back on the jeep, sealing it up as best he could against the desert sands, animals, and other trials. He did not want to pack up to go home and find it infested with spiders. That had happened once, up in the Pac-Northwest, and he did not want a repeat of that trip.

When Ollie finished with the jeep, he turned to see Roy had decided on the best use of the site, smoothing out the ground cover first. Oliver stood back, just watching the way Roy expertly handled the setup for a long moment before he jogged over to Connor. 

"Okay, while Roy gets us a roof for our heads, you and me get to set a fire pit. Start looking for some of the smaller rocks; shouldn't be hard as this site looks like it's been used a few times in the past."

"I watched Roy move a few out of his way, to spread the tent bottom," Connor agreed. He started moving to gather the small rocks, bringing them to a slightly blackened depression near where Roy was putting the front of the tent. It didn't take long for him and Ollie to ring the depression, and then Ollie laid in the makings of a fire for that night. 

Once camp was set, the three men settled into a quiet appreciation of the vista around them, broken only when Roy went and pulled his bow and arrows off his pack. Ollie snorted at him, but he took it as an excuse to get his own, and brought Connor's back for him. 

"I can't remember when I had the time last to actually do more than a quick safety check of my gear," Roy admitted, breaking things out to be sure the arrows were in prime shape. "You, Connor?"

Connor shook his head a little. "I was up at the ashram two weeks ago. I annoyed Eddie by spending a lot of it checking my bows, and reworking my quiver. But it is good to take time, when it is available, to double check them."

"I can't check mine often enough," Ollie admitted. "All the improvements in nano-technology have had me experimenting again with what I can put in an arrow head."

"I do not understand how or even why you have made some of your arrows of the past," Connor told him. "I had the unfortunate experience of being trapped with only your trick arrows to use, and it proved very difficult." 

"Different time, back then, son." Ollie sighed softly. "I'd say more innocent, but I think it was just less informed. Never would have been taking Roy with me, way back then, if I'd seen some of the things I know go on now," he added.

Roy looked at him for a long time, surprised. There was a time when he would have protested that he had always been up to it, but he'd led a Titans team with some young heroes on it. That had made a mark on his soul. "I get that, Ollie. Hard as heck to watch the chances Impulse and Terra and Damage would take sometimes, after all the things we'd gotten into that ended so terribly."

Connor turned his attention from one to the other, then spoke. "I never had the discipline as young as you started, Roy."

"Discipline?" Roy and Ollie said it in one breath, but then Roy cracked up. "Hot-headed, impulsive, had to be as good as or better than the Robin on my first team, just like Ollie had to be better than the Bat. It wasn't discipline. Hell, pretty sure I still don't have discipline, and I've worked for a few government agencies plus served on and led the Titans a few times." He then grinned at Ollie. "What about you, ol' man? Found discipline yet that isn't Di cracking a whip?"

That comment made Connor cough, but Ollie just chuckled. "She's not like that," he had to defend his on-again, off-again, forever-in-love-with girlfriend. "And, maybe," he added after, considering. "I don't want to stuff up this time around. I really want to be there with you two, see Lian get bigger, maybe teach a few tricks to Mia and keep her out of the big trouble. But discipline and me? Or intentions and actions? Not always the same things," he told them both.

Connor nodded at that. "It took me a long time to control my actions, but sometimes Eddie or Kyle thinks I am too controlled. There is something to say for balance, between heart and mind."

"Ain't that the truth?" Roy leaned back a little, eyes and hands moving over an arrow. "I think… yeah, it's Lian. Lian keeps me from being too rash. Because I have to make it home to her, every time. Can't leave my baby, even though I know she'd be in good hands." Lian was a lot of things for Roy, including a shield against everything that had ever been weak inside him.

Oliver felt a lump in his throat; how had his former sidekick grown up so right, when he'd stuffed up so many times? "That's good," he said out loud, rather than not voice that pride, and Roy ducked his head a bit, smiling for it.

"What about you, Dad? Is it having been dead, or having Mia to protect, or what?" Connor asked, and Ollie looked at his son full in the face. 

"Maybe all of that. Maybe it's just knowing I really shouldn't have felt like I had no reason to live when I got myself blown up. Maybe it's feeling like the family I was looking for was always around, if I had just balanced my books better," he answered. "Whatever it is, I'm damn glad you've both let me step back into your lives. Going to do my best not to blow it."

The younger men were quiet a long moment, and then Connor spoke for them both.

"We'll be there to help you stick to that promise, Dad."


End file.
